Just Askr Out
by Runo Wolfwood
Summary: With the heavy snowfall blocking the armies of Embla and Múspell from marching upon Askr in a full-scale invasion, the Summoner sneaks through the mountains to Nifl in the hopes of finding a way to defeat the King of Flame. Along the way, Heroes struggle to fight alongside old foes against revived friends. [Sharena x Fjorm] [Black Knight x Amelia]
1. Chapter 1

The kiss happened during a winter festival's dance which a nearby Askrian town held for the Heroes, with some planning from a certain tactician and his band of Shepard friends who had decided to dress up in coats of red and organize the exchanging of gifts to occur right afterwards.

As the songs changed, Sharena took a new partner, from a shy village boy who preferred to study the ground instead of her face, to a roguish mercenary who winked and made scandalous jokes to a charming prince who complimented her clothes and meant it, to even her sullen brother Alfonse at one point who for once was lightening up and smiling. When it was Fjorm that she began to dance with, Sharena remembered thinking, or maybe it was the lusty ballad playing at the time with the drums beating in time with her pounding heart, or the ginger beer that flowed freely from the barrel taps of the taverns that had put her in that frame of mind, that she loved the way that locks of Fjorm's hair, which had fallen loose in all the rowdy twirling and hopping and skipping, clung to her flushed cheeks and between her lips which glinted with moisture when the lantern lights touched them.

And when Fjorm took Sharena's hands with her own, fingers intertwined and palms pressed together so that Sharena felt the frigidness of her the ice princess's skin such that they made her shiver as they started to move with the music, Sharena remembered thinking how they were so soft and yet so firm.

And when the song ended and the applause rang out from the onlookers and Fjorm hugged Sharena and thanked her for the dance, Sharena remembered thinking as their breaths wafted before each other in little white wisps, that this was how she wanted to be held as she fell asleep tonight. That this person was the only one she wanted to hold her in this particular way, so close and so snugly.

So she kissed Fjorm, not by pecking her on the cheek, but by taking the other girl round by the shoulders before leaning in and crushing her mouth tightly against Fjorm's so that their noses brushed against one another, that Sharena could feel the flaring of Fjorm's nose scorch her own skin and taste the sweet, white chocolate that Fjorm had eaten a little while before. Sharena didn't plan it but she knew she had certainly meant it, wanted it, and for a moment, just that one long glorious moment as they stood close to each other in a crowd of hundreds, it felt so right.

But when Fjorm shuddered and broke the kiss before it could be deepened, her eyes wide with shock and her face going even redder than it already was from the merrymaking of the festival, Sharena realized that she had made a terrible, _terrible_ mistake, and snatched her hands away.

The people were clapping and cheering and whistling, but not for them in particular as Sharena wasn't the only one who had decided that they had wanted to kiss their partner, firm in their certainty that they had found someone who they wanted to share more than just a dance. As the musicians readied the next song, the two princesses both turned away and went in opposite directions to look for another partner as quickly as possible.

And tried to forget what just happened.

* * *

When Fjorm had awakened after collapsing from the injuries she sustained fighting King Surtr's servant Loki and Muspell's soldiers, Sharena had been the first person she had seen. Her face framed by morning light and her blonde hair braided elaborately, the other girl had seemed like an angel to Fjorm, who thought right at that moment that she had failed her mother and her country and that she was in the afterlife.

Then the angel leapt for joy, crying out, "She lives! The sleeping beauty lives!" before offering Fjorm some water, and the ice princess realized that she was in a bed, not a cloud, and thankfully still among the land of the living.

"You've been sleeping for five days straight," Sharena explained more quietly after she introduced herself. Fjorm felt Sharena elevate her head up with the cushions before delicately lifting her chin with the warmest fingers and tilting a canteen against her lips so that Fjorm could slowly sip from it. "You had us all very worried," the other princess continued. "The healers said that if you weren't going to make it by the end of the week then you weren't going to make it at all. So we had almost given up hope. We're right now in the ruins of an abandoned village not far from where we found you. This is the attic of a house that the fires didn't get to completely. We wanted to take you further out to safety but we couldn't find a cart to put you in and we didn't want to just sling you over a horse like some dead animal. Your wounds are beginning to heal by the way. The burns don't seem to be permanent either and are going away quite nicely. Truth be told, what we were most worried about was whether you had breathed in too much smoke or suffered a head injury since you slept this long."

It was at this point that Fjorm realized that Sharena was quite the chatterbox when she was happy. Despite that, Fjorm realized she found the other girl's voice to be soothing. Though she wouldn't stop talking, she spoke slowly and softly and with a sweet and cheerful voice, without airs or pretension like some of the courtiers and nobles Fjorm would hear in her mother's throne room proclaiming this and that with complete insincerity. "I'm really sorry for being such an inconvenience," Fjorm tried to say, but in doing so, she choked on the water she was sipping and broke into a fit of coughing while Sharena placed the canteen aside and got a rag.

"Don't strain yourself," Sharena said as she gently wiped Fjorm's chin and face. "You're among friends now," she added, patting the ice princess on the shoulder for good measure.

"Were you here the whole time that I was asleep?" Fjorm croaked as she took note of the chair that Sharena had been sitting in and the book and bowl of porridge that were lined up on the floor next to it. She tried to move and barely bit back a pained hiss as her whole body protested.

"More or less," Sharena answered. "The others were all here too on the first night. They sometimes come here to check on you. Right now most of them are probably out with Alfonse hunting or looking for survivors with Anna or with the Summoner trying to find the source of the fires."

Fjorm realized that fire was the last thing she wanted to think of, as her mind immediately propelled her back to what she saw in the shadows of the flames back that night when she laid on the ground bleeding as Loki gloated over her, and then even further before, back to where her nightmare began; a city ablaze, and her country's soldiers and their horses thrashing about as they were incinerated. Cavalry riding down the elderly and the children. Limp bodies slowly turning from the ends of nooses. Heads on spikes.

Then there's what happened to her mother.

"I know who started those fires," she whispered as she felt the beginnings of what she was sure was going to be one very bad headache. "Go get your friends. I don't think I'm in any state to explain this more than once."

Sharena's smile fell. She shouted something, but Fjorm couldn't hear her. She was already falling back into unconsciousness.

* * *

Not long after, when the moment was much better and the mood much lighter, Sharena would bring up Fjorm's fainting spell in front of others, and Fjorm would be embarrassed and try to clamp a hand over Sharena's mouth before she started mentioning all the other things that Fjorm had confided in her. Things like her pride in ice-skating, how she was always jealous of her elder sister Gunnthrá's figure and the first boy she crushed on. Things that Fjorm normally wouldn't talk about with strangers, but had talked about with Sharena because as the weeks passed since the Order of Heroes found her, she found the Askrian princess to be remarkably easy to befriend.

Although, sometimes she wondered if it was Sharena who had decided that Fjorm was to be her friend, rather than the other way around.

Then someone would mention how all cute the two of them looked together, like a couple, and Fjorm and Sharena would share a glance, before laughing together out loud.

And Fjorm wouldn't notice that Sharena would laugh a little shriller and a little louder than she usually would when it was just the two of them. "You would like that, wouldn't you?" Fjorm would retort with mock anger, while Sharena glanced her way, quickly looked elsewhere, before glancing back again just as quickly, as if she wasn't able to take her eyes off her fellow blonde for even less than a second.

If anyone around them saw what Fjorm didn't see, they kept it to themselves and decided that they were just imaging things. That it wasn't a case of fire where there was smoke.

After all, people were just joking, right?

* * *

 **Author's Note: Happy New Year! Originally, I planned to do this for Christmas but never really saw how to make it work till now.**


	2. Chapter 2

"Now walk towards me," the Black Knight ordered, his voice a low, cold rumble as it emanated from inside his helmet.

Like a child learning her first steps again, Amelia watched the ground as she tentatively moved one steel encased foot in front of the other. One, two. One two. One, two. She counted as she felt her feet crush the snow and heard the clank of all her plate mail. This was her first time doing this and she did not want to embarrass herself. She was the one who'd asked him to teach her how to fight in full armour.

They were further out from the town and near the trees where the woodcutters would do their work with saw and axe. The sky was in the middle of greeting the sky, but the birds could be heard chirping their morning song already.

When she was a trainee back in her world, Amelia had never been allowed the luxury of plate mail that could only be afforded by the rich or nobility, for she was the only child of a blacksmith from a village with no name that its folk could recall, and that could not be found on any map she had seen. And when she deserted from the army of her country and joined up with their enemies to fight for what she believed was the right side, she had taken to being atop a horse for battle but even then she wore little more than boiled leather and occasionally chain-mail when her comrades could afford it. But when she was summoned by the Order of Heroes, who had access to an entire kingdom's treasury, she had decided that it was something she wanted to try, if only because she thought it would be hard, and yet the Black Knight made it look so easy.

Plus she heard about what happened when her friends had tried to fight Surtr in single combat. If she could learn how to walk in full armour, she might be able to do what they could not, so they won't have to.

If the thought had ever crossed Amelia's mind that she was just a child, she had ignored it. In full armour, a child could stand against anyone.

"That's it," her teacher grunted. "Good. Very good, girl."

He never called her by name. He'll call her girl, ma'am, miss, and even milady – despite Amelia being a common girl from her home – but he'll never address her by what her parents had christened her so, even when she told him to use it.

From another person, Amelia would have considered such behaviour to be rude, or patronizing. Like her army commander because she knew he couldn't remember her name. But when the Black Knight did it, it almost sounded…gallant.

She wasn't watching where she was placing her foot next. It pushed through the snow and slid forward, forcing her centre weight off-balance as her front foot went too far from where her back foot was. She threw her arms out to steady herself but immediately felt herself teeter from side to side as she gasped in surprise.

She saw the Black Knight move from his seat on the tree trunk and dart towards her with a hand outstretched, but she was already falling as she moved her head too far back and began to topple.

The world through her eyes flew upward. As she cried out in alarm, Amelia felt the back of her head hit the cold snow as the chilly sensation covered the nape of her neck.

She heard birds tweeting, as if laughter.

"Do you think this is a game?" The Black Knight thundered over her, his helmet peering down. "Do you know what can happen to a man in full armour when he is lying on the ground in the middle of combat?"

"No."

"A halberdier can crack his breastplate open with his axe. A lancer can trample him with his horse. A man-at-arms – a child even – can flip his visor open and stick a knife inside." Amelia felt the Black Knight nudge her leg with a foot. "Like this, you can't guard yourself. You can't run. You can't fight. On his feet, a knight is a pillar, the mountain upon which the tide can only crash against in futile rage. On his back, a knight succumbs to the waves and sinks beneath without a trace. "

For a moment, Amelia was ashamed. But then she remembered that the Black Knight only admonished her for her safety. Scolding not for scolding sake but to ram home a lesson that was vital for her survival when she took the battlefield again.

Still, he could at least take off his helmet.

Amelia got to her feet, a task that was very difficult in full armour. The Black Knight did not lend a hand to help her, but did advise her on how to make it easier. "Move to knees and hands, and you'll be quicker about it," he said. When Amelia was once more standing, he looked her up and down with a tilt of his helmet, before he added: "Against hardship, you may stagger, and you may stumble, but you must not fall. Ever. Not when your life is on the line." Then he crossed his arms and stepped back. "Now let's try to do this again."

Amelia shook her head ruefully.

"What's your first lesson today?" the Black Knight asked as Amelia started to walk again.

"Be a mountain," the girl from Grado replied.

"We might make a knight of you yet."


End file.
